Relief to Birla Corporation: SC rejects Precedential Value of Ruling that GST Department not to have Benefit of Extended Period of Limitation [Read Order]

In a major relief to M/s Birla Corporation Limited, the Supreme Court rejected the precedential value of ruling that GST Department not to have benefit of extended period of limitation

The Additional Solicitor General who appeared for the appellant submitted that the observations of the Tribunal in paragraph 12 of the impugned final order would become a precedent in subsequent cases as those observations are general in nature and, therefore, would be followed by the Tribunal in other cases.

A Two-Judge Bench comprising Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan observed that “We do not agree with the said contention of learned ASG for the simple reason that those observations have been made in the context of what has been stated by the Tribunal in paragraph 13 of the impugned final order wherein details of as many as five audits for the relevant periods have been noted by the Tribunal and, therefore, in the facts and circumstances of the said case, the Tribunal held that the Department could not have the benefit of the extended period of limitation.”

“Since, the observations in paragraph 12 are relatable to the peculiar facts of this case, we think that they cannot be construed to be observations to be applied in general in all cases de hors the facts of the particular cases” the Court concluded.

With the above observations the Court dismissed the appeal filed by the Commissioner of CGST and Central Excise, Jabalpur.

Balbir Singh, A.S.G. Mukesh Kumar Maroria, AOR, V.C. Bharati, Ms. Monica Benjamin, Mr. Raghav Sharma, Ms. Sansriti Pathak, Counsels, appeared for the petitioner.

To Read the full text of the Order CLICK HERE

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